The True Hunger Games

"Non riesco a sopportare quelli che non prendono seriamente il cibo." (I can't stand people that do not take food seriously.) -Oscar Wilde

Apologies to those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of getting totally engrossed in the thrilling hit trilogy by Suzanne Collins featuring reluctant heroine Katniss Everdeen. I promise the title to this post and the previous sentence are the only references to the books and now, the movie.

For a different kind of revolution is budding nightly at our dinner table. And Peanut is playing the role of the strong, silent, accidental leader of the cause. She plays her own coy game most nights. It starts with a distraction. She asks us how our days were.  She lures us in by asking follow-up questions that make her seem interested. First mommy: How many meetings did you have? With how many students? What were their names? Then me: How many guests on your show? What were their names?

There have been times where not even a
 Disney birthday treat has amused her.

While all of this back-and-forth is taking place, Peanut is eating very little of her dinner. But My Director and I are. So we remind her, "If we're done and you're not, we're going to get up and you're going to have to sit by yourself." She initially protests. Then, recognizing The Hunger Games are life or death, she nods her head like a good soldier. And unenthusiastically shovels a bite of food into her mouth. All while trying to show her strength by staring you down.

When you finally look away, she gives you a subtle roll of her eyes, a direct act of defiance to what she considers typical parental propaganda. And she does this regardless of whether she likes the meal. It could be one of my delicious stews, or hamburgers and tater tots. (Don't judge.)

But why? Why this deliberate act of defiance from a rebellious child? What happened to her telling me how hungry she was as I was cooking? When she begged me for another snack and I said no because dinner was almost ready? Then throwing a fit as if I were torturing her.

And snack time is another opportunity for a mini-Hunger Games. She states she's hungry. I offer a banana. She asks for a cookie. I say no, have a banana, She freaks out. I say you must not be that hungry if you don't want a banana. She freaks out even more.

But there is usually no tantrum at dinner. It's all psychological warfare. A survival of the fittest. She'll try to entertain us, balancing a piece of spaghetti on her nose and tongue. And when I respond with, "I'd like you to stop playing with your food and eat it," she'll shut down. We know we've broken her when she gives us the elbow-on-the-table/hand-on-the-head pose, a pose I perfected when I refused to eat my pasta e fagioli growing up:

Reenactment. (And Go SU!)

I admit, I am totally the I-worked-all-day-then-cooked-you-a-healthy-and-delicious-meal-so-you're-going-to-eat-it dad. Still, she plays her game. One day she'll understand that the object of the game - what will make her strongest - is simply to eat her dinner. 

Read more ...

The Best Policy

"Honesty is hardly ever heard and mostly what I need from you." -Billy Joel

I said I was done talking about Hurricane Irene after my post from Monday. I lied. (Kind of.)

On Saturday night, I cooked a nice meal for me, the Peanut, and the friends that were hunkered down with us. I made a pot of gravy with ravioli and orecchiette, chicken cutlets, and a nice salad. If we were going to lose power for any extended period of time, I wanted to make sure we were well fed.

The Peanut was fine during dinner, but she didn't eat enough to earn dessert. She ate all of her pasta, one piece of her salad, and none of her meatball or chicken cutlet.

Regardless, she posed the inevitable question she asks nightly, "Daddy, may I have dessert?" I told her no. She didn't eat enough of her salad or her meatball. And she would have to if she wanted dessert.

She is at the age where she understands consequences now. And sometimes she accepts them. So she said, "Then I don't want dessert."

Fine.

Under the circumstances (solo parenting, with company, a huge storm about to hit), I wasn't about to fight her over a few pieces of lettuce.

My friend and I sat there polishing off the rest of the chicken cutlets. Who are we to let them go to waste if God forbid the power goes out? While doing so, his wife was busting out a package of Milano cookies they had brought. (Incidentally, when buying food for a hurricane, it appears most of it winds up being processed, boxed, and/or bagged.)

She offered one to the Peanut. To which my daughter, who continues to amaze me, replied, "No, my daddy said I couldn't have dessert, remember?"

I loved her so much in that moment. This little pain int he a$$ who fights me almost nightly because I make her eat what we eat . Who has to negotiate every single bite. Who asks for dessert just moments after we sit down for dinner.

I got out of my chair, knelt down to hug her and rewarded her for her honesty with a Milano cookie. Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Just when you think the stress of the routine, the anxiety of the coming hurricane, and the neuroses of parenting on your own have involuntarily made you a bad parent, your child will shove a little honesty in your face.

Maybe we're doing something right after all. What that is, I have no idea.

If you missed my full Irene post, click here to read it. Now I'm done with Irene posts... maybe.

Read more ...

Restaurant Weak

"Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity." ~Voltaire

I don't envy people in the restaurant business. It's tough to succeed. You have limited time and have to invest a lot of money. But some of them, a lot of them in fact, just don't get it.

So I'm here to provide a simple tip to the men and women who dare to dream by opening up an eating establishment: The person who eats the least, has the worst table manners, and is the messiest... is your most important customer.

I'm talking, of course, about children.

A restaurant owner in Pennsylvania not only disagrees with me, he has taken it a step further. He is not allowing children under the age of six in his establishment. He says too many customers have complained about unruly children. While I think he has every right to do this, I do not think his policy is good for business.

But maybe, just maybe, he and most other restaurant owners should go the other way. They should bend over backwards and cater to children. Parents would love it. They would literally eat it up. Profits would soar.

And the best way to do that? Eliminate those insulting kids menus.

Wouldn't going out to dinner be a lot less interesting if every restaurant only offered the same four or five meals? Then why do most of them do that to kids?

We get her a side salad instead of fries with her chicken fingers

Kids menus are basically a throw away at most restaurants. They’re an insult. Do these people not have kids? Do they not like kids? They're the pickiest of eaters. And their parents are, for the most part, even pickier about what to feed them.

So change the menu.

Better yet, offer a kid's version of your entrees. It’ll probably cost more. We’ll pay. I would.

Chicken fingers and french fries, pizza, grilled cheese, spaghetti with the worst kind of bland red sauce you can imagine. That’s not dinner in my house.

Where are the vegetables? Where are the healthy choices?

Every night, I cook my family a healthy meal. Protein, vegetable, grain. My daughter eats it. She loves it (most nights). If she doesn't, too bad. That's dinner. As my dad used to tell me when I would refuse to eat my mom's pasta e fagioli growing up, "you don’t have to like it, you have to eat it."

Shouldn't I expect the same from someone I'm paying to cook for me? Granted, when I go out to eat I'm not going to have a completely healthy meal. Something is going to be fried or creamed or there's probably going to be a big juicy slab of red meat on my plate.

But that's my choice. Give children the same choice. More choice

We brought our daughter to a popular local restaurant the other day. While we love this place, their kids' menu is loaded with carbs and fried food.

I told our server I'd like to order my daughter a smaller version of a pasta dish from the main menu.

"Sorry, we don't do that."

You don't? Or you won't? And why not?

So I asked them for the kids' pasta, but with the adults' Bolognese sauce on it. That they could do. (I'm not sure what the difference was either).

And one more thing: How about bringing my daughter's meal out first? Why do we even have to ask? And if we forget to ask, and order appetizers, how about bringing her meal out with the appetizers? How about firing her meal right away, and bringing it before the appetizers?

If they made these simple changes, and made kids a little more of a priority, so many parents would flock to their tables.

There is a big reason why good food is so important to me. Click here to read about it. 

Read more ...